The U.S. Supreme Court turned down a states' rights appeal from California Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday, leaving in place a judge's order that requires state officials to monitor each of about 2,000 disabled prisoners who are held in county jails.

Without comment, the justices refused to hear Brown's complaint that the order "violates fundamental federalism principles" by holding the state liable for lapses by local officials.

The court's dismissal is the latest setback for California's top officials in a long-running battle with federal judges over the management of the state's prisons.

Three years ago, the high court upheld judges who said the state's prisons were so badly overcrowded that they could not provide decent health care for inmates who had medical or mental problems. The only remedy, the court agreed, was to reduce the number of state prisoners.

In response, Brown helped engineer a "realignment" that shifted thousands of low-level offenders and parole violators to county jails. In 2012, the legislature decreed that these inmates were the "sole legal custody" of county officials.

But last year, the Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that the state retained the legal duty to make sure that prisoners who have a disability are given the "reasonable accommodations" required under the Americans with Disabilities Act, even if they are held in a county jail.

"These accommodations include the basic necessities of life for disabled prisoners and parolees, such as wheelchairs, sign-language interpreters, accessible beds and toilets and tapping canes for the blind," said Judge Stephen Reinhardt for the Ninth Circuit. "The state is not absolved of all of its responsibility for ADA obligations as to the parolees" just because they are now held in county jails, he wrote.

The appeals court upheld an order by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in Oakland, which said state officials must check with each parole violator who is sent to a county jail and has a disability. She said the state must see to it that the inmate receives the accommodations required under the law.

Brown and California Attorney General Kamala Harris appealed to the Supreme Court in March and asked for a review of the Ninth Circuit's decision.